Roy Villanueva-Veterans Memorial High School-STEM Teacher of the Month

Meet Roy Villanueva, an engineering teacher at Veteran's Memorial High School in Mission. He teaches engineering and in this class class students were focused on a required OSHA safety training module but robotics 2 usually involves more construction than instruction. "Mostly I enjoy seeing the creativity come out in the students and the passion that they have for building robots and competing. It's an awesome experience to see how much they get involved in the process," Villanueva said. After working outside education he moved back to the Rio Grande Valley to be closer to family and then changed careers. "I had always thought about teaching I just never did it. This is my first teaching job at Veteran's Memorial High School and I love it," Villanueva said. He graduated from Edinburg High School and then received both bachelors and masters degrees at UTPA. Now he's been teaching at Mission Veterans for the past 3 years. David Dhoyos who's a senior at the school says, "Any problems we have he improves it by telling us what we need to do." While Stephan Jabs a junior adds, "He really lets the students think independently he doesn't control your thought he's kind of in the background giving advice." Not just building robots but knowledge these students can use to solve and obstacles they may encounter in life. Villanueva adds, "The skills that the students are learning here are skills that they're going to take with them forever. One of the most basic skills is problem solving and problem solving you need whether you're an engineer or a parent at home."